Sony Buy Sucker Punch, Exclusives Will Abound

You could be forgiven for thinking that Sucker Punch were already an appropriated wing of Sony's enormous first party stable, but today publisher and developer publicly tied the knot. Sony announced this morning that the company has bought inFamous developer Sucker Punch, retaining exclusivity rights to all future games from the studio.

Sucker Punch Productions is one of the most highly acclaimed development studios in the industry and we have enjoyed a wonderful relationship with the company for over 12 years. We are delighted to officially welcome them to the SCE family.

The addition of Sucker Punch to SCE WWS reiterates our dedication to developing world class gaming experiences that can only be found on the PlayStation platform. With one of the strongest exclusive software lineups in the PS3′s history, combined with the diverse, innovate content in the works for PlayStation Vita, consumers have a lot to be excited about this year. - Shuhei Yoshida, SCE WorldWide Studios.

Sony have proved themselves exceptionally adept at finding and, most importantly when it comes to the competition, securing some exceptional first party studios after long-running relationship and tried and tested exclusivity contracts.

By comparison, Microsoft managed to let Bungie, BioWare, Crytek, Bizarre and the good bits of Rare slip through their fingers.

'I’d be lying if I said other groups weren’t interested in a group like Sucker Punch,' said Sony WWS US boss Scott Rohde. 'The bottom line is, when you’ve got a group that’s been as successful as Sucker Punch, we want to ensure that we keep them in the fold. It’s that simple. It’s hard to find high quality developers like these guys.'